Part time work and bank holidays - does this seem right?

[yesbutnobut]

Hi I'd be grateful for any advice on my entitlement to bank holidays as someone who works Tues - Thurs (3 days).

Even though my contract says I am entitled to pro rata bank holidays (i.e. 60% - usually around 6 days if there are 8 BHs in a year), I've realised the small print says I can take the BHs which fall on my working days - very unusual as I don't work Monday or Friday - but the rest of my entitlement is deducted from my annual leave entitlement. This is because they give you a 'maximum' annual leave entitlement which can't be exceeded.

This seems totally unfair to me. Full time workers don't have to take BHs out of their maximum annual leave so why should I? It seems like they 'give' you the BH pro rata amount in theory and then take it back again by deducting it from your annual leave entitlement.

Before I raise the EU Directive which says employers can't discriminate against part-time workers with my HR dept, could anyone offer any words of advice based on their own experience please?

Can't answer this without knowing:
What is the total number of days of annual leave plus bank holidays that a Mon-Fri employee gets in a year?
What is the total number of annual leave days that you get in a year?

You should get whatever annual leave the full time staff get, reduced accordingly. So a/l + bh pro rated. Essentially you should be quids in not working Monday's and get more days annual leave than someone who works 3 days incl Mondays who has to take them off.

Is there anyone who works 3 days including Mondays to compare to?

So say your full time equivalent holiday entitlement is 28 days (legal min which is 4 weeks plus 8 bank holidays). Working 3 days a week would mean you were entitled to 17 days holiday. You would get that as 12 days 'annual leave' and therefore you would be entitled to 5 days bank holidays. Chances are you would only get 2-3 bank holidays a year so they should actually add the extra on to your annual leave. If someone in your position worked Mon-Wed they would probably get more than their entitled bank holiday and have some deducted.

I think that is how it should work!

Hmm...could be just ambiguous wording?

The law says that part time workers must not be treated less favourably than full time workers. The law also says that workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks holiday (pro rata); that there is no obligation to give bank holidays as paid leave, and that employers can include bank holidays in the 5.6 weeks annual leave.

If full-time is 5 days, a full-time worker gets a minimum of 28 days leave (5.6×5=28). If you work 3 days, your equivalent leave is 16.8 days (5.6×3=16.8).

If bank holidays are not working days in your workplace, then presumably anyone who would normal work on those days needs to use a day's leave for that day? I would have thought that puts you at an advantage?

Fish it's complicated as we also have the ability to buy additional days. F/t employees get 25 days AL, the right to buy up to 13 additional days plus all BHs (usually 8 I think). The 25 days plus 13 = maximum holiday entitlement of 38 days, exclusive of bank hols.

My contract says I get pro rata that i.e. 60% of 25 AL and 60% of 13 additional days. This is 22.4 days. I also in theory get 60% of BHs in a year but HR are saying, to the extent these fall on non-Bank Holidays (which most of them do), they have to be included in my max holiday entitlement as I am not allowed to go any higher than that (i.e. 22.4 days).

I feel I am losing out here as f/t workers get bank holidays in addition to their holiday allowance. One way of looking at it is f/t workers can have 38 days holiday plus 8 BHs, a total of 46 days which is 9 weeks and a day. To my mind I should have 9 weeks and a day as well, which would be 27 days and a bit extra.

Tired - I know people who work on Mondays and they can take those days in their pro rata BH entitlement. To the extent there are more BHs than they are entitled to (which is quite possible as there are 8 BHs in the year typically) this comes out of AL allowance, which seems fair enough to me.

So, yes, people working Mondays are better off which in itself seems wrong.

Sorry if this confusing!!

Right, I think I understand where HR are coming from, so tell me if I'm correct? (If I'm correct, I think they're wrong, but we can get to that!)

It seems, to me, that they are giving full timers a set holiday allowance exclusive of bank holidays, with a maximum of 38 days including optional bought days. Then they are allowing bank holidays to be taken as a day off without deduction of pay (so not included in the holiday tally but effectively being treated as if it was a leave day). This works fine because all full-timers are equal.

Then they've realised that they mustn't discriminate against part-timers so they've given pro-rata bank holidays, but then they've thought about it and decided that you really don't need time off if you weren't going to be working on a bank holiday anyway (because after all, the full timers aren't being given extra holiday; they're simply being given the day off without their pay being docked). For the part-timers who would be working Mondays, they've gone a step further and worked out the pro-rata BH, then said anything over and above must come out of their usual holiday.

It's all a complete mess, isn't it?

The whole thing is unfair. You should all be either paid BH or not paid, then part timers pro-rata (hours is best, always). It doesn't matter whether you normally work on a day that a BH falls on. You are still entitled to be treated fairly.

Lougle thank you for ploughing through my post! And for confirming what I thought. What a mess as you say - hope I can get HR to see sense without needing to quote EU directives (though based on my interactions so far I don't hold out much hope).

I think that you/hr are tackling the problem from the wrong direction by lumping together the annual leave with the optional "bought" leave and then adding in bank holidays. The annual leave and bank holidays should be lumped together as they are both the same kind of benefit of paid time off, and the bought leave reckoned separately.

A mon-fri worker gets 25days a/l plus 8 days b/h without sacrificing any pay. You should get 60% of this ie 19.8 days paid holiday. If one of your working days fell on a bank holiday then this day would indeed get deducted from that 19.8 days (and even with a tue-thur pattern some years xmas/boxing day will be on these days).

Separately, a f/t worker can sacrifice pay for a further 13 days so you should be able to sacrifice pay for a further 7.8 days if you choose.

So yes your maximum leave paid and bought should be 27.6 days per year.

you know that p/t workers must be treated equally and it sounds to me like this is a case of an hr team with a poor grip on maths rather than any malevolent intent. Splitting the paid and bought leave in this way may help them to see sense.

I used to get pro rata A/L plus pro rata BHs. If a working day fell on a BH, then I would use part of my BH entitlement other wise I could use my BH days whenever I liked to supplement my A/L.

The minimum annual leave for full time is 28 days which can include bank holidays. You work 3/5 so get 16.8 days, as you don't work on a bank holiday you don't need to take a days leave on those days.

I'm a bit confused, but it is perfectly legal and correct for p-t workers to get pro rata bank holidays, and to have to use time from their annual leave allowance to cover bank hols which their pro rata bank holiday allowance won't stretch to. It is not discrimination, you have exactly the same amount of time off (pro rata) as full timers and both full year and part timers must use part of their leave/BH to cover bank hols.

It's much less confusing if you view annual and bank holiday leave as one and the same thing and do not differentiate.

Thanks all - it's sorted. I met HR yesterday and they admitted they'd made a mistake. Phew! I didn't even have to quote the EU directive on unfair treatment of part-time workers! So, yes, I am entitled to my pro rata bank holidays in addition to my annual leave. It was great to have so many views here

I work part time and I work Mondays.
I work 0.6 so I get 60% of a full day's annual leave for every bank holiday Monday.
As my office is shut those days I have to use a full day's annual leave to take these days off.
But these extra hours off ARE in addition to my AL.